AFRICA
RESOURCES
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Greenpeace blokades tropical logs from afriocan rainforest in the Dutch port of Delfzijl Greenpeace Switzerland blockades import of African timber Italian company SEFAC involved in illegal logging in Cameroon
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Greenpeace blokades tropical logs from afriocan rainforest in the Dutch port of Delfzijl Greenpeace-activists
blockaded a load of tropical logs from the African rainforests. The
logs has just been offloaded from the ship "The
Stamatina" which transported logs from Cameroon
and Congo-Brazzaville to be sold on the European market. The rainforests of the Congo Basin represent the second largest rainforest area in the world (after the Amazon).The forests of the Congo Basin boast an incredible diversity of plants and animals such as the lowland gorilla, the chimpanzee and the forest elephant. Large mammals are increasingly threatened as new logging roads provide easy access for poachers who are killing these protected animals on an industrial scale. The rainforest provide food and materials for local people and forest dwelling peoples such as the semi-nomadic "Pygmy" communities of Cameroon whose survival strongly depends on an intact rainforest ecosystem. Industrial logging increasingly creates social conflicts in Central Africa as people don’t benefit from the logging operations. Cameroon is the largest tropical timber exporter in Africa. But sustainable forestry does not exist. All experts agree that forestry operations in Cameroon should be considered "mining operations": logging the best trees without caring for the rest of the forest. Once the best timber is taken – companies simply move onto a new forest area without real long-term management of the concessions. Illegal logging is rampant in Cameroon, the level of corruption is extremely high and the forestry department lacks the capacity and the manpower to monitor the forestry sector and carry out field inspections. 3 timber species imported by "The Stamatina" are listed as "threatened" by the World Conservation Union (WCMC / IUCN). According to IUCN, Doussié, Sipo and Sapelli are all listed as "vulnerable" which means the species is facing a high risk of extinction in the wild in the medium-term future. Iroko is also suffering from heavy exploitation in large areas of it’s growing area. The owner of the occupied tropical timberload is the Belgian importer "Decolvenaere". Despite several requests, the Belgian importer Decolvenaere has shown no interest at all to purchase FSC-certified timber. The same company has forestry and sawmill operations in East-Cameroon, in an area of high conservation value, with many forest dwelling communities living in the area. In Cameroon, the company has indicated no real willingness to even explore the potential of a more sustainable forest management. As proven by the Greenpeace research in Delfzijl, the company Decolvenaere is also trading logs which are logged by third parties with no guarantees whatsoever that the timber is coming from sustainable forestry operations. The forest destruction in Cameroon caused by industrial logging is largely dominated by a small number of foreign companies, in which European (French, Italian, Dutch, Belgian) companies play a prominent role. Greenpeace denounces the fact that national and international governments have completely failed in their efforts to protect ancient forests and the biodiversity these forests contain. The International Tropical Timber Organisation. (ITTO) – promised a decade ago that by the year 2000 – all tropical timber on the world market would come from sustainably managed forests. Then years later – virtually no progress has been made and in many regions – illegal logging is escalating. For
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